"Are you the Miko?" cried Hodges—"the Miko of the Oconees?"
The old man fixed his calm and penetrating look upon his interrogator, and replied with much dignity, "My young brother has said it. He has nothing to fear; the Miko stretches out to him his hand, in peace and friendship."
"You the Miko of the Oconees?" repeated Hodges, grasping the Indian's hand, and heartily shaking it. "I am delighted to see you; and, to say the truth, I was on my way to your village."
"The maidens," said the chief, "told the Miko that the son of the great father who owns the two Canadas, had escaped from the chief of the Salt Lake, and sought shelter in his wigwam. My eyes have seen, and my soul believes what is true. But my brother has travelled very little of the path leading to his people."
"I will tell you why," said the young man. "You have an excellent girl for a daughter—Heaven bless her!—and she and that angel, Rosa, were like sisters to me. I would gladly have remained longer, had not the voice of duty called me away. But when your daughter left me upon the other side of the river, something escaped her that made it my first duty to return to your wigwam."
The chief had listened with much attention. "What did my daughter whisper in the ear of my young brother?" said he.
"Few words," was the reply, "but weighty ones. I understood that the poor girls would suffer for their goodness to me; and that, suspecting they had brought a Yankee spy into your wigwam, you would perhaps kill them."
"And my brother?" said the Miko.
"Held himself bound to return, to avert the danger from their innocent heads."
The Indian stood for a while in silent reflection. Then his countenance brightened, and once more he stretched out his hand to the Englishman, to whom this sign of good-will was rendered the more welcome by the appearance of a long line of savages who just then glided out of the thicket, and ranged themselves behind their leader.